Smoke Rings in the Dark
by cowgirlfromhell
Summary: OW - Buck Wilmington is shanghaied and forced to work in a silver mine where he meets a woman who is above his means and station in life.  Will love, forced by circumstance, be enough to overcome their differences? With much thanks to Gary Allan.
1. Chapter 1

The wagon rumbled through the pitiful camp, churning up dust, coating the surrounding tents with yet another layer of the fine red powder that relentlessly worked its way into eyes and hair; into clothes and bedding,even into the very food the rag tag group ate but once a day. Long legs, clad in buff colored pants, hung seemingly lifeless out of the back of the conveyance. Another hapless cowboy or perhaps a drifter fallen prey to a pretty face offering up a glass of whiskey laced generously with laudanum for which she was paid $5.00 a head. The barkeep kept the weapons and the horses and his mouth shut.

The wagon rolled to a rocking stop and Frank Hawley, an enormous hulk of a man with no hair to speak of and dressed in filthy twill pants and a stained buckskin jerkin, jumped down from the seat and marched to the rear. He grabbed the cowboy's wrists and heaved him over a massive shoulder and walked to a row of shabby tents where deposited his load, none too gently, onto the hard ground.

A lone woman stood before one of the tents her feelings in turmoil as she watched someone's husband, someone's son, a lover or a friend snatched from the everyday business of living only to be forced to labor in the small silver mine so far off the beaten path that no one came looking...ever. Not for missing cowboys or drifters or even her own small band of travelers waylaid on the way west to California.

Walking over to the crumpled figure she sighed wearily. Here lay the newest prisoner guilty of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a strong one, tall and fit with a full head of deep, rich brown hair and a rakish mustache. He'd last a few months more than most, she thought, much less if he crossed Hawley or tried to escape.

Squatting, she brushed a lock of stray hair back from his forehead. It was a pity he'd never see his wife and children again. As it was he'd barely see the sun, forced to work from sun-up to sun-down seven days a week until he was no longer of any use, the dust he'd inhale day after day causing pneumonia and the lack of food making him so weak he could no longer lift a hammer or turn a jack leg.

The small silver mine was nearly played out but with labor so cheap Hawley could keep it going until the last ounce of ore was brought forth. Stretching out her hand the woman ran a reddened and calloused finger absently along the strong line of the stranger's jaw.

"Pretty, ain't he?"

The voice sent chills down her spine and she jumped up and instinctively backed away awaiting the large man's next move.

Laughing, Hawley spit a stream of tobacco juice at her feet and she took another step back. Smiling like the feral animal he was he then released the slack in the leather lead he held in his hand and one of the mangy dogs he kept in the camp lunged at her. She scrambled back still further fearing what the curr might do next but it only circled once and began to sniff the downed man.

Hawley pulled the lead up tight and yanked the dog up next to him again and, with squinted piggish eyes, said to the woman, "I liked you a hell of a lot better when you weren't such a timid little mouse; when you used to fight me," and her faced paled visibly. Glancing down at the newcomer he then smiled wolfishly. "Get him up and ready for work by morning. If he ain't ready I'll shoot the son of a bitch where he lays." Spitting once more, the glob of odious brown juice hitting the prone man in the chest, Hawley walked away dragging the hound.

Kneeling in the dirt next to the unconscious man's head she slapped his pale cheeks again and again calling him back from oblivion. He finally opened his eyes and she smiled wanly at him but now that he was conscious pain lanced through his head and his stomach roiled. Vicious cramps caused him to coil into a fetal position and his breath came in labored pants. It had begun.

She'd seen it all before, the agony, the vomiting, the fouling of clothes, all the result of the Mickey Finn he'd been given. Just bar whiskey of dubious origins and a pain killing elixir, simple and necessary commodities found in any frontier town, but when mixed together they created a potent and thoroughly debilitating poison.

It was her job to bathe faces with cool water, to keep the newcomers from suffocating in their own vomit and, when it was over, help them to bathe. She fed them a little something to quiet tormented stomachs and washed soiled clothing...and did as she was told, day after day, week after week, month after month; all the while praying that God would strike Frank Hawley down where he stood.

But Hawley would wake up each day hail and hearty and she would then pray to God to take her away from the filth, the pain and the death that had become her life. She asked God to simply let her die but an unbidden and seemingly boundless inner strength kept her going. That and the knowledge that Hawley would just find someone else to take her place and things would continue on as before, the cruel, sadistic brute and his cowardly brother, getting rich off the very life's blood of others.

The clank of metal on metal brought her out of her sad reverie as Hawley tossed a pair of heavy shackles on the ground next to his prisoner. Refusing to put them on him until the sickness had passed and he was clean again, an agreement she and Hawley had come to and one for which she had paid dearly, she simply tossed them to one side and waited.

The sickness came on him with a vengeance and Buck Wilmington wondered how a few glasses of whiskey, no matter how rotgut, could make him so sick? His insides churned and knotted until he could no longer control his bodily functions and vomit spewed forth from his mouth into the dust while liquid fire ran from his bowels. Cool soothing hands gently moved his head, caressed his face, wiped his mouth and a sweet voice reassured him, promising him he'd be all right.

The chills shook him as sweat broke out on his skin then quickly dried in the baking sun. He could hear his own moans as he bucked and heaved until there was nothing left inside of him and dry heaves wracked his body, abdominal muscles burning. Death would be a welcome relief he thought between bouts of painful cramps, his eyes closed tightly, teeth grinding so forcefully his jaw ached.

In the ensuing delirium he called out for his mother and someone named Chris. He fought gun-battles long past, smiled when he talked disjointedly of a kid and, when he was at his very worst, he saw the graceful, lazy turns of vultures circling over his body and the bright light of heaven.

In reality the bright light was the setting sun and the carrion birds were the gentle wafting of the long, dark tresses of the woman who tended him and, as she bent to unbutton his shirt and bathe his chest, he noticed her eyes. As blue as a Colorado winter's sky but veiled in so much sadness.


	2. Chapter 2

After many hours the worst of the sickness was over and she dragged a frayed sleeve across her forehead. The true torment would start in the morning, long before sunrise. Lifting his head she placed a tin cup of cool water to his parched lips and let a small trickle wet them. "Do you think you can stand?"

Opening his sour mouth Buck took a small swallow and waited. His stomach fluttered gently but the liquid stayed down. Surprised he wasn't dead and weak as a kitten he managed to get unsteadily to his feet with her help. She told him there was a bath waiting for him and, looping his arm over her shoulders, they took slow unsteady steps toward the bath tent. He reminded her of a newborn colt, many of which she'd seen growing up on a horse farm in Tennessee...but that existence seemed a lifetime ago.

Buck leaned his weight heavily on her but she had grown strong, cooking, hauling wood and water, scrubbing, mending even burying the dead and together they made it into the sweltering heat of the tent. A large copper tub sat invitingly in the center of the canvas expanse, an extravagance they had brought west with them, a luxury her husband hadn't wanted her to do without as they made their way to California and a grand new life in a beautiful new land. But since crossing the Rio Grande she had seen nothing but hot, dry, dusty land and the ugliness of man. "Can you remain standing? I need to get your clothes off."

Looking down at the sweat soaked shirt and feeling the dampness down his legs; Buck was mortified but too weak and disoriented to do anything except as she asked. He muttered a barely audible apology but she didn't respond to his whispered words, just continued to pull the suspenders down over his broad shoulders and acting as if he hadn't literally spilled his guts all over himself.

"It's the laudanum," she told him, "One day they'll use too much and kill…" her voice trailed off momentarily. "Lift your arms, please," she continued and smiled fleetingly as they towered above her. "If you can bend at the waist I should be able to pull off your shirt."

Bending over, his spent muscles aching, she pulled down his suspenders and tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it out the open tent flap. With a hand on her shoulder Buck lifted his feet high enough for her to yank off his boots. Warm, surprisingly strong hands slipped into the waistband of his pants and she began to unbutton his fly and too weak to put up much of a fight, he simply closed his eyes as she pulled the soiled garment off along with his faded red flannels and his socks. She then wiped his naked body down, his humiliation complete.

"You're a tall one but I'll think you'll fit. My husband John was tall and he…" again her voice trailed off into silence. His hand was still on her shoulder for balance and she helped him into the tub of lukewarm, blessedly clean water and he lay back and closed his eyes while she gathered up the rest of his soiled clothing and took them outside. There she dumped them into a steaming cauldron of soapy water, tamping them down with a stick.

Alone in the tent his head now pounding, Buck tried to recall as much of the last few days as he could. One thing he did remember was that he had had it "up to here" with Chris Larabee and, while eating lunch in the saloon, his oldest friend's foul mood and sarcasm had put him off his feed and onto the back of his horse. Riding hell bent to the west he vowed to ride until he found a town so far out of the way no one would look twice at him or give two shits about him, a town where he would proceed to do just what Larabee had accused him of; shirk his duty.

His friend had accused him of failing to do his share when it had all been a simple misunderstanding. How was he to know that a few minutes with that sassy new red headed whore at the saloon would turn into an all-nighter? A marathon roll in the proverbial hay where, when he was done, they lay asleep in a jumble of bedding until the brightness of the mid morning sun woke him. Jumping up on legs of jelly he'd hurriedly dressing and raced down the stairs for his turn on patrol...a turn long since past.

Eyes still closed Buck felt the water in the tub move gently and heard the drops from the rag she soaked in the bath water. The urge to modestly cover himself caused him to stir but he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"It's all right. Just lie back," she urged him and did as he was told; the smell of lye soap strong in his nostrils but the caress of the soft cloth gentle as she lathered the hair on his chest.

The woman scrubbed his shoulders and gently messaged his taught neck. Rinsing the rag, she brought it up over his head wetting his hair and working up a fat lather, she began to message it into his thick, dark hair. Dutifully tending all the others Hawley had brought back with him to camp, old and young, comely and plain, she took special care with this one and wondered if a casual smile from the tall, handsome stranger might quicken the beating of her now dormant heart.

She had always loved beautiful things, the graceful, rippling muscles of a galloping thoroughbred; the smooth and elaborate carvings on fine wood furniture, the cleft in a man's chin and she found this man a pleasure to look at even as ill as he was, as she had loved watching her husband before he had died, a sick and broken man. Tears filled her eyes sparkling briefly in the light shining through the tent opening before slipping down her cheeks.

Buck Wilmington could no longer think straight. Having just spent hours in a poisoned hell, gentle hands now tenderly bathed him, sensuously washed his hair. An angel in the torturing midst of Hades fluttered solicitously around him ministering to his every need and a contented sigh escaped his lips and caused her to smile through her tears. Laying her cheek briefly atop his freshly washed head he was surprised by the intimate gesture and when he turned to look up at her she was gone, returning a few minutes later carrying a large swath of linen and a stack of neatly folder men's clothing.

"I'll leave you these. You're near my husband's size and they should do you until yours are clean," she told him setting the clothes on a makeshift bench near the tent's back wall. "The others will be coming soon. They'll want food. Will you be all right, Mr…?"

"Wilmington, ma'am, Buck Wilmington," he replied flashing her a wan smile, his exhaustion etching his face deeply around his mouth and under his eyes. The simple gesture turned her cheeks rosy as she turned and, stooping quickly under the tent flap, left him alone to dress.


	3. Chapter 3

Stepping from the tent, Buck's eyes adjusted to the twilight and he heard a woman's squeal followed by a resounding slap that set him at a labored trot toward the large fire at the end of the tent row.

"You stupid bitch! The irons are still here right where I left 'em!"

The woman sat on the ground, her arms behind her, ready to scrabble away backward if Hawley tried to strike her again. She stared at the hulking man, her eyes large, frightened but at the same time wary.

Hawley had no chance to molest her further when Buck grabbed his arm just as the brute reached for her...his angel. Turning on him Hawley jerked his arm free and glared at the ladies man.

Buck simply stared back and said in a voice deceptively soft, "You hit her again and…" but Hawley cut him off.

"And what, cowboy? Just what're you gonna do you son of a whore?" Hawley challenged and dropped the barrel of a side-by-side shotgun even with Buck's midsection.

Being born in a brothel and to a whore, Buck took no offense at the man's remark. He simply bent and offered his hand to the fallen woman while Hawley, never taking his hard, gray eyes from Buck, continued, "I see you was too stupid to run when she gave you the chance, huh cowboy. Unless you know about the desert at night and figured you're chances are better here. Or maybe you heard the dogs."

"I've been meaning to ask. Just where _is_ here?" Buck's eyes locked with the larger, bulkier man dressed in serviceable but filthy clothing. Didn't he make use of the bath tent or a washtub, Buck wondered, as he looked around for a rock or a tree branch with which to even the odds a little? There was nothing.

Snorting, Hawley kicked the leg irons in the woman's direction and she stooped to retrieve them although touching them was almost too much for her to bear. "Just you never mind. No need to know where ya are if ya ain't gonna be leavin' any time soon."

Hawley jerked his head at the woman and she walked up to Buck and touched his arm momentarily and whispered, "I'm sorry." She then squatted and attached the rusted iron to his booted legs checking them to make sure they were secure.

"Get up, you miserable whore," Hawley growled before she has a chance to stand and he grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled.

Well used to the slovenly man's mistreatment the woman placed her hands on his and used his own strength as leverage to rise up without loosing a single strand of hair. She then went sprawling to the ground again as Buck's fist connected with Hawley's chin and sent the two of them backward.

Trying to press the attack, the shackles impeded his forward movement and Buck stopped before he fell, face first, onto the hard-packed earth.

The big man rose to his feet, the shotgun still in one hand and pulled the woman up roughly with the other. "You wanna protect the little lady?" Hawley spat out venomously, his tongue probing his mouth for cuts. "Well, all right, we got us a real gentleman here, folks." Spreading an arm expansively Hawley included the small band of five wretched beings who'd slunk out of the darkness to watch the three of them in silence.

With sunless white skin and protruding bones, the laborers were encased in torn, filthy rags and had been led from the mine by Hawley's younger brother Ruben at sundown to grab the meager amounts of food and water allowed them before they returned to their tents for a restless, cough laden sleep.

Hawley rubbed his jaw and grabbing the woman moved closer to Buck and shoved her roughly toward him. The ladies' man stopped her momentum and moved her to the side and out of harm's way.

"A worse cook you'll never find and she won't roll back on her heels lessen ya force her." Harley said and spit on the ground before the two of them.

Hearing her gasp and feeling her move closer to him, her body trembling, Buck realized she wasn't afraid of the burly man standing before them shotgun in hand, she was terrified.

"And too stupid to remember a simple thing like shackling a man unless ya beat it into her." The big man took another threatening step toward the two of them and Buck instinctively placed his weakened body between them angering Hawley even more. "You want it instead?" Harley shouted, his anger flaring hotly at Buck's subtle defiance. "Do ya?" He quickly lifted the butt of the coach gun high in the air but Buck held his ground and stood fast until the wood slammed into his jaw with a sickening thud.

Bright stars flashed before Buck's eyes and the shock of the blow coursed through him and he collapsed to the ground on his back, bleeding from the mouth. Groggily he attempting to regain his feet but his arms collapsed under him as the square tip of Harley's boot connected solidly with skin, cartilage and the bones of his rib cage, the blow rolling him onto his back.

Ruben Hawley, as skinny as his brother was fat and with long greasy hair hanging down his back, watched dispassionately from the shadows as the stranger's actions brought repercussions. He didn't care if his brother killed the damned fool or not. The new man would die sooner than later anyway and Ruben would simply wait for the next one to arrive to flesh out the three two-man crews he oversaw. Drifters were a dime a dozen.

Hawley then turned to the woman and pointing a finger at her hissed, "You tell him, he keeps interfering with my business…with us...and I'll keep giving him what you're owed." Spitting again Hawley hoisted the shotgun over his shoulder and warned her, "And if you forget to shackle another one, I'll shoot the bastard on the spot then make you wish I'd a shot you instead."

Quickly dropping to the ground beside him, the woman lifted Buck's head and placed it gently in her lap and wiped away the blood that dripped around his mouth as Hawley walked away calling out over his shoulder, "You make sure he's ready to work in the morning. If he don't pull his weight he's a dead man."

The effects of the laudanum would be long gone by morning and without the pain killer in his system the injuries to his jaw and ribs would make working difficult if not impossible sending Hawley off to town for another hapless victim and Buck Wilmington to a quicker death than had Ruben quite literally worked him to death.

She had to get him to her tent but the others had eaten the tasteless stew she had prepared earlier and had watched, with eyes already dead, the beating of the defenseless man, then drifted off into the darkness. Only Hawley's brother continued to eat in silence as he watched her.

Gently lowering Buck's head to the ground, she scrambled to a half filled water bucket and lugged it back to where he lay. Kneeling again she dipped the hem of the ragged dress she wore into the cold water and bathed his face. Blue eyes opened momentarily only to squeeze shut, the pain fierce in his side and head.

"Please, Mr. Wilmington, you've got to help me," she pleaded and pulled forcefully on his arm.

Deep within his cocoon of pain, Buck heard her and his eyes opened again though they were dulled with pain. A moan escaped his split, bloody lips and with her help he attempted to sit up.

"Please, you can't stay here. If Hawley doesn't shoot you or turn the dogs loose on you, you'll freeze to death. I have a place for you to lie down, blankets and food, but you've got to help me."

Buck knew she was right. The bastard Hawley was mean enough to set the hounds he evidently kept near the ramshackle cabin at the far end of the tent row on him and the temperature would quickly fell below freezing when the sun dipped below the horizon leaving in it's wake a cloudless, star-studded sky: beautiful to look at but deceptively deadly. He just couldn't bear to get up but knew he had to make the effort.

Buck attempted to move and the grinding of his ribs caused him to take short panting breaths and getting to his feet was a monumental task. They heard Hawley's laugh when Buck bellowed in pain and frustration but with her help, and her persistent words of encouragement, he rose up on hands and knees and then finally to a standing position.

"Bath tent," he hissed out as she began to angle him away from it and toward the last tent on the row, "I'll need the linen to bind me."

"I'll get it as soon as you're settled," she assured him and they slowly made their way to her tent.


	4. Chapter 4

In addition to the incessant clanking of the chain between his legs, Buck could hear coughing and the occasional moan from the other tents as they passed them by. If there was a hell on earth his inclination for a pretty face and ugly whiskey had led him unerringly straight to it.

Her tent was the largest by far with many amenities, like goose feathers encased in a blue-ticked mattress casing that was suspended on a rope bed frame, pulled tight to keep it from dragging in the dirt. Bright colorful quilts lay atop it strangely out of place in the miserable mining camp but somehow fitting in the tent of woman also so out of place.

Since the discovery of gold and silver, mining camps had sprung up almost overnight all over the west and Buck had seen the coarse women who set up businesses on the fringes of these camps. They were a rough and tumble lot, filthy and often times diseased, without a full set of teeth between them. Women whose sole purpose was to separate the hardworking miners from every ounce of gold and silver or hard earned dollar they made before they could take it to the nearest town and spend it on the whores there.

When he was younger, he'd heard tell of town whores riding out to the larger mining camps and thrashing the camp whores to within an inch of their lives hoping to drive them off. But this was no ordinary mining camp and this woman, though she was thin and wore a threadbare dress of faded teal calico, was defiantly not a camp whore and, despite Hawley's insinuations and barbs, he wondered in fact if she was a whore at all.

Hawley was defiantly the mine boss and his brother the shifter but there the resemblance to a mining camp ended. Men stood in line to stake a claim or to sign on for a decent wage in this day of rich gold and silver strikes and booming mining towns. To shanghai and shackle men was unnecessary and against the law. But there was no law in this camp, except for Hawley and the dogs. Buck realized.

The dark haired woman led him to a rocking chair placed next to the bed. Her hand stilled the to and fro motion that would have hurt him all the more when he sat down and as she lit an oil lamp he sucked down more blood as it continued to pour from the slices in his mouth and he was afraid he would again be sick.

Hurrying to the cupboard standing against the far tent wall the woman rummaged until she found a small tea caddy and a scrap of gauze. Setting these on the table she wrapped a pinch of the fragrant leaves in the material then returning to the rocker gently lifted Buck's chin.

"Put this in your cheek. It will help slow the bleeding," she told him and grabbing the hem of her dress she brought it to his mouth where, at her urging, he spat a mouthful of blood into it. She wiped his lips and pushed the small packet gently into his mouth then lit the stubby candle on the small table beside the bed and picked up the oil lamp, "I'll get the linen."

Although he longed to take a deep breath, Buck managing to keep his breathing slow and shallow and while the woman was gone he looked around the dimly lit tent. Better than many of the places in which he'd bedded down over the years, it was nonetheless puzzling, this tent with an honest to God feather bed, a substantial cupboard, a small table with two straight-backed chairs and the rocking chair in which he sat.

The furniture was solid and made of cherry wood, he guessed, pieces for a permanent home of wood planks and brick not a makeshift abode of canvas and dirt. He recalled a book read to him as a child about a girl who falls down a rabbit hole into an up-side-down world and suddenly he knew just how she felt. What hole had he fallen down and how was he to get out?

The woman returned with the linen sheet Buck had used to dry himself and sat at the table tearing one end into long, wide strips. Kneeling in front of the rocker she lowered his suspenders and gently pulled the shirttail from his pants. "Oh, God," she gasped. The bruise was massive and already angry shades of red, blue, purple and black.

"It's okay," Buck assured her gently already suspecting the worse and gingerly held up the shirttails, "I'll be fine just soon as you truss me up like a Sunday chicken." he said with a bravado he didn't feel as she went to work binding him.

The tight bindings allowed him some expansion of his lungs but would keep his ribs stable and secure. He felt somewhat relieved and more in control of his battered body and as the woman started to get up he cupped her chin in his strong hand. She remained kneeling before him and looked deeply into his eyes. "What's your name?" he asked caressing her chin with a gentle touch.

There was fear in her eyes but she didn't pull away, only answered him in with a soft, southern drawl. "Bethany. Bethany Williams."

"Well, Bethany Williams, I know this place ain't right. It's off the beaten path and off kilter to boot but anything you can tell me will help."

She looked at him in puzzlement, "Help?"

"Help us escape, get us out of here."

A look of stark terror crossed her face and she clasped her hands tightly together almost as if prayer. "No, you can't. You mustn't even try," she warned him.

Buck placed his hand on her shoulder and ran the other down the side of her cheek, soothing her, settling her as he would a horse on the verge of bolting. He realized he would have to go slowly when he felt the trembling of her body.

Bethany took a calming breath and started talking, evenly at first, as if telling a story. "One day Hawley found one of the men missing. He never bothered to look for him, to find out if he had truly run away, he just set those dogs of his loose. We could all hear the baying as they tracked the poor man down. Suddenly the baying turned to a cacophony of barking and we knew that the dogs had found their prey." She stopped momentarily, swallowed thickly and continued, the words rushing from her mouth. "Hawley rode out toward the creek and returned with what was left of the man. He…he."

She tried to pull away from Buck but he held her fast, his ribs screaming with pain as she twisted and pulled reliving it all. That man had been the first she had buried but not the last and she lowered her head and sobbed. "Shhh. Hush now. It's all right," Buck said soothingly running his hand gently over her hair until she was cried out.

Regaining her composure, Bethany wiped her eyes and nose on the hem of her skirt, his blood leaving a tiny smudge on her cheek. "I'm so sorry," she apologized, "You're hurt and I imagine quite hungry and here I am crying like a child."

Buck saw the abject misery that shown in her eyes though she slipped on a poker face Ezra Standish would have been proud of. She had work to do, painful at times but it kept her feet planted firmly on the ground and enabled her to look over, but not fall completely into, the gaping pit of madness.

Setting her lips and steeling her slim shoulders, Bethany stood, brushed dirt from her dress and headed toward the tent flap. Turning, she looked thoughtfully at him. "I'll tell you everything I know, but Mr. Wilmington…"

He looked up at her and waited quietly for her to finish, to say the words that seemed so hard in coming.

"But there's only one way out of here," she assured him and left the tent.

Buck ran his hand over his jaw, wincing at the tenderness, lightly touching the swollen mass. He didn't dare open his mouth too wide or run his tongue along the myriad of slices on the inside of his cheek for fear of starting up the bleeding again. He fingered the gauze bag in his mouth and marveled at how efficiently the simple remedy had stopped the bleeding and wondered what other secrets the gentle southern bell with the spine of steel held inside.

Bethany Williams wore no wedding band but had mentioned her husband a few times. Maybe the poor soul was relegated to one of the other tents housing the workers, Buck thought, but giving him the man's clothes to wear until his could be laundered didn't bode well for the fate of his angel's groom, especially with the sadness in her eyes. Had her husband made good his escape from the camp in the only way she thought possible?

Bethany returned with a plate of gristly meat and sodden potatoes and helped him into one of the straight-backed chairs at the table. Buck looked down at the plate and removed the poultice from his mouth and asked, "Can't find a worse cook, huh?"

Surprised, Bethany laughed softly at Buck's remark until she remembered the last part of Hawley's statement. Apprehension settled over her and she took a few steps away from the handsome new comer.

Buck sighed and reached around to grab her hand before she could move further away.

"I've never taken a woman who wasn't completely willing," he told her truthfully and turned his attention to his supper, which was bland, watery, lacking in substance and in spice but he ate it anyway while Bethany sat across the table from him.

"He only brings supplies every few weeks, usually rancid meat and spoiled potatoes. He had an Indian woman who cooked for him for a while, for the camp, and when she wasn't pinching me black and blue or slapping me for some infraction, real or imagined, she taught me how to forage. I try to add what I find but there's nothing left out there for miles except desert and this God forsaken mountain sticking up in the middle of nowhere."

Buck looked up at her with gratitude and she shrugging her slim shoulders. "She also taught me how to heal. She taught me the trick with the tea leaves."

"And a dandy trick it is, too," he said softly scraping the last bits of his meal onto his spoon. "Did you eat? No better fare this side of Cold Water," he assured her and showed her his empty plate.

"Yes…I ate earlier," she told him, eyes downcast, resting on her folded hands.

Bethany Williams had a beautiful face, was the epitome of grace under pressure, but she was a piss poor liar. Had she given him her share of the gruel or had she given up and decided to slowly starve herself to death? Sliding his hand across the smooth wood of the well-used table he rested it atop hers. He felt the slight tug as she tried to withdraw her hand and he squeezed his fingers gently around it. "I have friends who won't give up 'til they find me."

She looked at him askance. After misrepresenting himself and leading her small group to this isolated butte and using up the limited resources the men had represented, Hawley now only picked drifters, no accounts missed by none. Men no one would ever come looking for but she smiled anyway and pretended to believe him wanting him to hang onto his false hope as long as he could.

"Then you'd best be getting some rest," she said pulling her hands from his. She stood and smoothed an errant strand of dark hair behind an ear, "Daybreak comes when you least expect it."

Buck stood gingerly and regulating his breathing to shallow pants and said, "If you'll show me the accommodations that tub of guts… er, Mr. Hawley has so generously set aside for me I…"

"No!" she cut him off her eyes pleading, "You can stay here. I'll make do with the trundle." She pointed to the small bed tucked into a corner and added, "Please…"

The ladies man fully understood her urgent desire to have him stay and he agreed. He just hoped he'd be able to protect her if Hawley did come calling. Slowly and painfully he lay down on the soft mattress.

Bethany pulled off his boots, the metal of the shackles cold against his skin. Searching through the wardrobe she produced a pair of thick woolen socks and slipped them onto his feet. She then pulled a quilt over his long body and Buck was sure he could find a better cook just about anywhere...but a kinder, gentler soul…never.


	5. Chapter 5

The shotgun blast startled Buck awake and he sat bolt upright in the bed. There was no pretty whore asleep next to him nor was his gun within arm's reach. Pain shot agonizingly through his side when he tried to move and the memory of where he was came rushing back. It was his second day down Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole and the Mad Hatter himself was shouting in the predawn darkness.

Across the tent a match flared and the lamp on the dining table glowed illuminating Bethany's wan face and dark hair. She moved next to the bed ready to give Buck the help he would need to get up and over to the table where a large bowl of foul smelling brown goo sat waiting for him.

She was by far the worst cook ever he thought when he looked in the bowl and it showed plainly on his face. Bethany laughed and he thought it a magical sound and most likely unheard of so far down the rabbit hole.

"It's a poultice for your ribs," she explained and stirred it with her fingers.

"Thank the Lord. For a minute there I thought I was going to have to play the hapless bridegroom on the day after the wedding."

"When the poor soul finds out his bride's a terrible cook and he has to eat every bit of the supper she'd prepared form all the while pretending it's the equivalent of the finest meal at the Peabody," she said somewhat wistfully as if recalling her own marriage and lack of cooking skills.

The two of them grew quiet and as she watched him in the soft lamp light, his morning's whiskers shadowing his jaw and his expression unguarded and weary, she decided he was the kind of man who wouldn't lie to save a woman's feelings but rather a man who would take the time and have the patience to help a woman learn to cook.

"Are you married, Mr. Wilmington?" Bethany asked as her hands deftly removed the linen wrapped around his ribs and, when he turned to look at his burning side, she gently but firmly turned his head back toward the candle until she could slather enough of the poultice on him to cover the hideous bruising. It would do him no good in the coming hours or days to see just how bad it really was.

"Almost…once," he replied softly, his mouth turning up slightly, as he remembered a spirited redhead named Louisa.

"What happened?" she asked boldly and he shifted slightly in his seat when she stood to re-wrap the linen.

Buck tried to ignore the pain but he became increasingly uncomfortable with her ministrations as well as with her question. The question was innocent enough and the pain in his heart, as well as the pain in his ribs, seemed to be lessening, enough for him to remember a time past and to stand up.

"Nothin'…really. Just never happened," he said and looked down at her head as she bent to pull the knot tight. It was his turn now to ask her the same thing and, fearing her answer and her reaction to the question, he took hold of her arms and plunged ahead anyway and asked the question he'd been wondering about since landing in the encampment, one of many questions. "And you? Are you married, Bethany Williams?"

Pulling away, seemingly to assess her handiwork, her eyes danced touching on everything in the dimly lit tent except his face. After a long moment she looked up at him, took a deep breath and sighed, "I'm...a widow, Mr. Wilmington."

She said it as if it were the first time she'd ever had to utter the words aloud and he berated himself for bringing up the subject. He suspected the truth but needed to know for sure. "Listen…" he started and took a step toward her but she held a stopping hand up to him before he could move any closer.

Bethany Williams did not want comfort. She wanted to embrace the sudden, sharp pain; to relish it so she wouldn't forget, forget her husband, forget what Frank Hawley had done to him, to her, and what he would do to the man who now stood before her.

"Widow" the word echoed in her head and her heart pound. Would she ever get used to or over the fact that her husband of four years was truly gone? It had been the first time she had said it aloud, the first time someone had bothered to ask, and she felt the blood rushing to her head.

Buck saw her face pale even more in the dimness and, pushing her hand away, he stepped close to her, close enough to put his arms around her and gently draw her to him. She let him hold her but for only a moment.

She then gently pushed him away. "You've no time to waste, Mr. Wilmington. Rubin Hawley will be waiting to take you to the mine while Frank will be waiting for you to show even the smallest sign of weakness. When you do, he'll pounce."

"Then let's not keep 'em waiting," Buck said and gritting his teeth he pulled on his pants.

Bethany helped him on with his shirt and boots and when they were finished, his face was covered in sheen of sweat.

Ruben Hawley let go with a second and final blast of buckshot and Bethany told him as she ushered him toward the tent flap, "There is no breakfast or dinner, only supper, so take these with you," and forced two hardened biscuits into his hand. She had thought to give him only the one but he would be working with Petey today and a man as kind as Buck Wilmington seemed to be would most likely have given his away and done without.

A frown creased Buck's forehead and he started to protest, to say she should keep them for herself, but she cut him off. "There are more where those came from. You see, Mr. Hawley the elder and I have an agreement. When he drinks too much I steal from him."

Buck barked out a laugh, stuffed the biscuits into his pocket and picked up his hat.


	6. Chapter 6

The mineshaft ran deep into the mountainside and was dark, darker than the night could ever be and as Buck's new partner lighted the candles spiked into timbers, he could see that the drift was barley an inch above his head in places. Discarded train timbers lined the entrance and more were used as braces supporting the back of the mine where ominous looking fishers striated the rock.

At the face of the drift there was barely room for the two of them and using only a hand held drill steel bar and a ten-pound sledgehammer they were to single jack the eighteen-hole diamond pattern into the face of the hard rock that would be needed to blast out the shale.

The man Buck was to work with was a drifter come to the town of Cold Water four months prior. He was thirty but looked fifty, dressed in filthy, torn clothing, his gray eyes holding the flickering light of someone on the brink. Eyes able to burn brightly again or wink out in the blink of another man's eye, a man like Frank Hawley.

Buck sighed. The sad part of the whole affair was that no one seemed to have missed Petey, nor would they miss him either if Chris Larabee had taken his angry words at face value. He hoped his old friend knew better, knew him better, if he was to offer his new partner a glimmer of hope. "Name's Buck Wilmington," the ladies man said holding out his hand.

The tow headed stranger hesitated for a moment, wiped his filthy hand on his shirtfront, before extending it out to Buck. Petey Bruer," the stranger said and stared at Buck a moment before he bent to retrieve the sledge. "I seen him kick ya. I'll swing today for as long as I can. You can just jack 'till your side heals up some."

Thanking God for small favors Buck picked up the steel bar and shoved it against the rock face at the tip of the diamond configuration they would create. Eighteen holes and eighteen sticks of dynamite and the face would crumble almost two feet in.

Petey leaned the wooden handle of the sledge against his legs while he fished two long strips of material he had tucked into his shirtfront. He wrapped his hands and, with Buck's help tying them off, began striking the end of the bar again and again just a fraction of a second after Buck gave it a half turn and jerked his hands back. They found a comfortable rhythm broken only when Petey needed to stop and catch his breath and to cough up some red tinged phlegm that he spit into the dirt.

Buck's arms and wrists began to ache and before they got two inches into a single hole he could see Petey was spent. "Listen partner, I think I got the hang of this now. My side's not hurtin' too much and I think you'd be a hell of a lot faster than me on that steel."

Thankfully Bethany had rewrapped his ribs and smeared more of the foul smelling poultice onto his side but his ribs still throbbed with pain. He knew Petey could no longer heft the heavy hammer and would more than likely smash his hands as he turned the steel bar for him.

And so it went, Buck swinging the hammer and Petey twisting the bar, from sunup to sundown with only a few sips of warm water and a stolen biscuit between them while Bethany washed clothes, stirred the cook pot and waited.

She saw Petey first walking slowly into the light and ran to him. He was alone

"Where's Mr. Wilmington?" Bethany's brow was furrowed, her eyes bright with unshed tears as worry, verging on panic, gripped her.

"He stopped by the creek," Petey told her, "Said he wouldn't come back 'fore washin' off the dirt and the stink."

Bethany relaxed but looked at Petey hard to see if he were lying to protect her. "He ain't stupid," the conscripted miner told her, "Knows he can't get far in those irons and with them busted ribs. He'll be here directly."

Breathing a sigh of relief, she continued to dole out supper while keeping an ear out for the distinct clink of chain. But the jingle of spurs cut through the silence instead as Hawley marched up to the cook fire and grabbed a plate. Looking around he quickly counted silent, bowed heads.

"Give 'im five minutes," he said turning to his brother, "If he ain't back here by then, set the dogs on 'im."

Ruben Hawley's stomach turned when he thought of the trio of half starved hounds his brother kept penned up on the far end of the encampment next to his shack. Even the woman wouldn't go near them, refusing to feed them.

His brother had let them go only once before to stop a runner. The man was dead long before he and his brother could beat the dogs off, his throat torn out, his insides eviscerated by sharp teeth and blood lust. They dragged the body back to camp, Hawley forcing each one of them to take a good long look, a lesson lost on none of them and though they were chained at the far end of the camp, some nights brought their eerie howls to the tents on the wind.

Bethany hooked the ladle on the lip of the pot and wiped her hands on a tattered apron. Grabbing a lantern, she headed toward the stream near the mouth of the mine. There she found Buck squatting next to the stream bed, his hands still bound in bloody strips of cloth and immersed in the cold water to numb the burning pain.

The ladies man only looked up when she squatted next to him and the circle of lantern light surrounded him. His breathing had already become ragged and his body shook visibly. Without a word, she helped him to stand and, instead of leading him to the cook fire, she took him directly to her tent, his shuffling gate much slower than when he'd started out that morning.

Once inside she helped him to sit at the table, lit the candle and hurriedly left him alone in the tent.

"No treats for those unfortunate creatures you keep penned up, Mr. Hawley. Mr. Wilmington is in camp," she told him as she ladled the last of the stew into two dishes. Thinking a moment, she dumped one dish into the other and turning up her nose at Hawley and his brother, she returned to her tent.

Thankful he hadn't had to turn the dogs out so soon, Hawley knew it was only a matter of time before the cocky son of a bitch Wilmington would loose his bravado, his strength, his looks and finally his will to live and he wanted to savor ever day of that time. He knew the former lawman would hang on tenaciously for as long as he could if only to protect the woman and Hawley smiled and thanked a God he didn't believe in for delivering Buck Wilmington right into his hands.

Buck, unmoving, simply stared at the flickering candle. His shoulders and biceps raged in pain as did his back and hands. He felt the grit from the drill bit in his hair, scratching his eyes, in his nose and mouth and all the way down his throat. It coated the sleeves of his shirt and he tried in vain to brush some of it off but the pain in his hand was excruciating. So intense was his pain that Bethany had entered the tent and Buck hadn't even noticed.

Touching his shoulder gently, briefly, she place the plate before him then busied herself in the pantry with a tin cup, a few pieces of bark and the boiling water she had also brought with her from the cook fire. What she didn't use in the cup she poured into a basin along with a few more pieces of the bark.

As the crude tea steeped she watched Buck try to grasp the spoon handle but his fingers were so cramped that they refused to cooperate. Cup in hand, she sat next to him and taking up the spoon began to feed him as if spoon-feeding a grown man like a baby was nothing out of the ordinary. Knowing he must be exhausted, she kept her peace and waited until he was ready to speak.

Although his stomach was collapsing in on itself with hunger, he blocked the next spoonful and asked, "Have you eaten yet?"

"Yes," she answered never looking at him.

"You have to eat, goddamn it!" Pent up anger mixed with fear boiled over in him, anger at his situation and fear that she would starve to death before they could be rescued, and he beseeched her, "Please."

She dipped the spoon into the gruel and, staring into his eyes, ate the next spoonful and three more before he would let her feed him again. Buck realized that their rations were a double edged sword. If he gave her his share he would grow too weak to protect her and if she continued to give him her share she would die before Chris and the others could reach them.

"Here, drink this, all of it," she said holding the tin cup to his lips and he drank obediently, grimacing as he held the last swallow of the hot brew in his mouth.

"Don't you spit that out," she warned him, "It will help with the pain."

Buck swallowed doubting anything short of poison would ease his pain as he watched her retrieved the basin of warm water. Placing it before him, she unwrapped the fabric and saw the gaping open sores where the skin had blistered and peeled off, layer after layer. His hands had seen their fair share of work over the years but swinging a 10-pound sledgehammer for 12 hours had torn away any existing calluses along with most of the rest of his skin.

Unwrapping his other hand, she placed them both in the basin and bathed them gently and, as the bark's anesthetic properties began to take hold, the pain did indeed lessen. She let them soak a good long while before gently patting them dry then coating his palms with salve, she rewrapped them in clean strips of linen and asked, "How are your ribs?"

"Rubbed raw," he told her running his teeth over the open sores in his mouth marveling at how he had forgotten all about them as the new pain of his forced labor blocked out the previous days injuries.

She lifted his dust-covered shirt and checked the bindings. They were loose and she rebound him tightly then walked him to the bed and helped him to lie back. She watched as the bark tea and exhaustion overtook him but even in sleep his brow was furrowed, his expression pained.

As she watched him sadly, she knew that each day he would get a little weaker, a little sicker, until Hawley deemed him no longer a threat and he would remove the shackles. But it would be too late. Buck would start to cough up blood and loose what little appetite he had. He would become brittle and stooped, unable to stand erect, and finally die.

Her John had fought the good fight but in the end Hawley and his goddamned silver mine had broken him as they would break Buck Wilmington and she buried her hands in her face and sat down in the rocking chair next to the sleeping stranger and allowed herself the luxury of tears.


	7. Chapter 7

A month had past and Buck knew he was failing not only physically and mentally but emotionally as well. There was still no sign of Chris Larabee or any of the others he had thought his friends and hope was fading for him as well as for Bethany and for Petey, too.

After a month Wilmington was too weak to run but Hawley still kept him shackled in chains for one simple reason. He wanted to hear the son of a bitch when he came for him, something the mine boss was sure was in the cards. Even half starved and beaten bloodied, a man like Buck Wilmington, when faced with the inevitable, would not let go without a fight. Hawley knew that the more hopeless the situation became the more desperate to kill him the ladies man would become.

For thirty days Buck Wilmington had toiled in the mine and for thirty nights he had slept in her bed and he knew instinctively that something was wrong with Bethany Williams. She had lasted only a couple of hours in the trundle bed before slipping into bed to lie next to him secure in his protection and, soon thereafter, warmed by his love and devotion. They had formed a bond that grew stronger even as he grew weaker and he pulled the bandanna from his face and set the sledgehammer down leaning the long wooden handle against the rib of the drift.

"Nobody said you could stop, cowboy." the younger Hawley said and got up off the barrel and lowered his rifle.

Petey knelt, his hands still on the iron bar. He was afraid to move, afraid to even turn his head to see if the shifter would indeed shoot his partner because, if what he thought was now inevitable came to pass, he would not only loose a friend but his support system and most likely his will to live. "_Please__back down, Buck_," he prayed silently and bowed his head, powdered rock drifting lazily from his dust-white hair.

"I'm goin' back to camp." Buck announced and wiped the sweat from his brow then turned to Ruben. "Kill me if you want but your brother ain't got his money's worth outta me yet. He might just stick you in here in my stead if you was to leave him short handed."

The cowboy was right, Ruben thought. Frank would skin him alive if he killed the man before his brother could exact his full measure and then skin him a second time if he killed Wilmington for something as simple as returning to camp before his shift was finished. Ruben lowered his gun and, curious as to what was going on in the tall man's head, followed leaving Petey alone in the dark.

Once outside, Buck shuffled across the stream bed and ambled up the small embankment.

Nearly blinded by the daylight he painfully searched for the woman but she was nowhere to be seen. Moments later a loud crash drew his attention to Hawley's miserable hovel and his shuffling gate picked up speed and changed to a strange lope as he headed toward the shack, Ruben running few steps behind.

Reaching the tar papered shack, Buck heard a grunt and then another crash and charged the door. It burst open easily under his weight.

"How long you been stealing from me, woman?" Hawley roared drunkenly and advanced on Bethany as she sat, back to the large cabinet, a trickle of blood already running down the side of her mouth. He was ready to haul her up to her feet and send her crashing yet again against the wall or into a piece of furniture with another backhand when Buck roared out, "That's enough, Hawley!"

Drunken incredulous, pig eyes turned to the man standing in the doorway. "What'd I tell you 'bout interferin'?" Frank slurred drunkenly and listed toward the rifle lying across his filthy, foul smelling bed.

Buck momentarily thought about trying to beat the drunkard to the firearm but knew it would give Ruben justification to shoot him in the back. The time wasn't right and he crossed the room to help Bethany up but the pain of a rifle stock as it smashed squarely into his kidneys sent him to his knees before her instead. A second jolt brought tears to his eyes as pain radiated sickeningly through the small of his back clear through to his navel. A third blow might have stopped his heart, if he was lucky, but instead of swinging again Hawley collapsed on the bed, rifle still gripped tightly in his hands.

Rocking back on his heels Buck continued to kneel in the dirt before her gasping for air, speechless with the shock of such intense pain. Using the cabinet to steady herself Bethany rose up and knelt before him. She gently cupped his cheeks with her hands then threw her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. As she held him she rocked him slowly until the white-hot pain in his back and guts subsided, replaced by a dull throbbing.

"Help him to my tent," she said and looked over Buck's shoulder to the man leaning in the doorway, "Please," she added, the word sticking in her craw.

Ruben Hawley, the weasel to his older brother's fox, was always ready to do Frank's bidding. Never able to stand up to the man's brutality he always did what was expected of him. Ruben sickened her; made her skin crawl and he made her angry. He could help them if he chose but he always remained within boot licking distance of his older sibling and today was no different.

Bethany helped Buck to his feet and back to their tent where she bathed him, fed him and eased his pain as best she could with a soothing tea that would allow him to sleep. Because tomorrow would come soon enough and Buck would either return to the mine or die where he lay.


	8. Chapter 8

Buck Wilmington squatted on the bank of the stream and watched in silence as the dust and dirt from his hands and face drifted downstream away from the camp and the mine. As he watched he knew freedom was only a few steps down that very same stream, a bullet in the back putting an end to his forced servitude and to his pain. But, if he were dead, who would stand up for Bethany when Hawley got the itch to bed her? There was no one. The others were all too downtrodden, squashed like bugs under Hawley's heavy boots.

Buck, too, felt the weight of those boots and knew it would only be a matter of time, perhaps mere days, until he was beaten, literally and figuratively, down to where he could no longer stand up for her or for himself. He had even dreamed of his Ma last night, her face clear again in his mind's eye as she smiled and called him to her. But Bethany's gentle stirrings and warm breath on his neck awoke him before he could follow. The genteel Southern flower needed him and he would keep protecting her until his mother's voice became too strong and his will too weak to resist.

Closing his eyes he knew she was coming down to the water's edge to get him, to bring him "home". He knew she would always be there, between him and the dogs, keeping him alive for just one more day, for her sake and for his. But it was still just a matter of time as he thought of the young cowboy he'd worked with day in and day out.

He had begged Petey to hang on, assured him someone would rescue them any day now, but the young man had died anyway. He had held on for as long as he could but passed in his sleep the previous night, before help could come. Buck had known him for only five short weeks and, despite what Hawley said about nobody missing a drifter like Petey, Buck would sorely miss the young brush-popper.

Stooping behind him Bethany wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her palms on his chest, her face pressed against his broad back. He nuzzled her arm and kissed the cloth of her sleeve. He would miss her unbearably should she be destined to die in this place before him.

"I buried him next to my John," she said softly, "He took Petey under his wing, kept him alive until you could come along to see him through to the end of his journey."

Throwing the scraps of rags he had wrapped around his hands into the gently flowing water, Buck said angrily, "Will you bury me next to the two of them?" He never meant for his words to come out as harshly as they had and Bethany cried out in distress. Her arms fell away from him and he stood and pulled her close and hugged her fiercely. "I mean…it would be nice…It just that…" he stammered and took a deep breath, "God damn it, Beth! Neither of them should have died here, in this miserable hell-hole! A man should choose the place he dies be it on the horns of some miserable, tick riddled steer in the thick or facing down a gunman in the middle of the street in some Podunk town like Four Corners. I'd be more than satisfied to die like that because it's where I choose to die, not where some random cocksucker decides to kill me."

He held her tighter and rocked slightly side to side. "Bethany, Petey didn't choose to die here and I didn't choose to come here to die either. But I am here and, even if it means walking away, I'll die on my own terms. Can you understand?"

"Please Buck, you said there are others who would be looking for you," she said and reached up to cup both cheeks in her hands. She turned his face to look at her. "Petey believed you. I believe you."

He took her hands and brought them down between them and held them tightly in his. "Look where it got him," he laughed bitterly, "I was wrong, Beth. Hawley knew what he was doing when he picked me. He knew I was a no-account, skirt chasin', near do well, never holdin' down a job for any length of time, never settling down to raise a family like most men. Not one person will ever grieve for me when I die...and no one's coming for me except the angel of death. Hawley chose me because he knew exactly what kind of man I am."

Bethany was silent for long moments, her thoughts roiling tumultuously. Finally she told him what she had learned a week ago in Hawley's shack. "He chose you because of what you were, not who you are!" she said. Tears sprang to her eyes because when he knew the whole truth he would do something crazy, something foolish and Hawley, knowing the game was over, would kill him.

"What'd you say?" Buck asked not quite sure he understood her meaning. He bent his head to look at her and when she hesitated he gripped her arms tightly and demanded, "Tell me!"

But still Bethany faltered. She did not want to give him the excuse she knew he so desperately wanted. She needed him to stay alive, to keep her alive as well, because she knew full well she wouldn't be able to bury him and just walk away. But the pain, so sharp in the depths of his blue eyes, caused her to relent. "He chose you because you were a lawman, a sheriff, in Russell, Kansas."

"Russell? Frank Hawley?" Blinking rapidly Buck thought back to his days as the principle peace officer in the small but thriving cattle town of Russell, Kansas. "Hawley," he repeated as a small screech owl flapped its wings almost soundlessly in the night sky above their heads.

The short squeal of a field mouse followed seconds later and Bethany shivered. The old Indian woman would have likened the sound to an omen, a portent of what was to come. "He said you hanged his half-brother for a crime he didn't commit."

The smell of dust and cattle, mixed with the smell of human excrement and urine, assuaged his nostrils. The sound of a man begging, crying like a baby, calling for his mother rang in his ears, along with the scratching of a wooden handle and the thump of a trap door. The collective gasp and then the silence, broken only by the sobbing of a little girl's heart broken mother, as it fell over the crowd.

Shaking his head, Buck let his arms fall to his side and started back to the campsite. Bethany Williams was all but forgotten as he thought back to his last official act as the sheriff of Russell, Kansas...the hanging of Lester Day.

It was an unbearably hot, dusty afternoon and just before he had jerked the wooden handle Lester Day had cried out for his mother just as sure as the little girl he had raped and strangled had cried out for her's, the lone, pitiful, wailing voice in the silence that soon surrounded the gallows.

Sheriff Buck Wilmington had hung Lester all right but he knew for a fact that the animal Frank Hawley called his half-brother had indeed committed the crime. He had defiled and murdered a seven-year-old child and Buck had caught him still on the girl even as her body began to grow cold. He had wanted to kill the young drover on the spot but instead he arrested him, took him to jail, protected him from the gathering mob until he could testify against him in a court of law and finally pull the lever. Justice was served and Buck Wilmington had left town shortly thereafter to drift further west, then south.

"Buck! Buck, please," Bethany cried out and ran after him.

"I didn't kill you when I had the chance," Buck sneered at Frank as he came into camp, "But I did kill that maggot you called a brother. You should have heard him squeal like the pig he was when I slipped that noose around his neck and yanked it tight."

Staring at the former lawman Hawley smiled. Wilmington had finally figured it out, why he had picked him out of all the people in the saloon that night.

Buck had figured that out and so much more. Pinning on a badge in a small town in Kansas had eventually led him to this mining camp in the desert of the Arizona Territory. He had indeed chosen this place to die…only it had been years before. "They say a man looses all control when he hangs. Well, your brother fouled himself long before I snugged up that hemp or put my hand on that lever. He was a sniveling coward, cryin' for his mama," Buck continued hotly, "Well, I sent him home to his mama alright…only in a pine box, wearin' those filthy clothes and with the noose still around his neck, his eyes starin' bug eyed outta that puffed up, blackened face."

Buck, angered beyond control, shook with a cold fury and lunged at Hawley. He wrapped his hands around the other man's throat and squeezed until, lost in his hatred and anger and never feeling the blows Ruben rained down on him, the stock of the rifle finally splintered and he lay unconscious in the dirt.


	9. Chapter 9

The saloon was quiet, deserted for the most part in the early afternoon hours, with only the bar keep, a bored looking and most likely apathetic whore, a gambler shuffling a deck of cards as he played solitaire and a large man sitting off in a corner nursing a beer. Vin Tanner took note of them all as soon as he walked through the bat wing doors slapping the trail dust from his buckskins with his hat. Walking up to the bar he ordered a beer.

The barkeep looked surreptitiously to his right before picking up a mug. "Been awhile since we had a buffalo hunter in here," he said innocently enough.

"Army scout," Vin volunteered and threw down his coin. Picking up the beer he retreated to a seat just to the left of the entrance.

"Care to chance your luck, stranger?" the gambler asked the newcomer as he adroitly shuffled the deck with only one hand.

The scout took one look at the obvious card sharp and replied with a snort, "No thanks. Think I'll hang on to what little luck, money and dignity I got."

Outside, the town in which Chris Larabee found himself was called Cold Water, was a non-descript conglomeration of weather beaten cobbled together buildings planted without much thought out in the desert. Chris looked up and down the main street. Yeah, this was it, he thought, the kind of town Buck Wilmington would favor. A town with more bars than churches and more whorehouses than homesteads.

Hitching his horse to the railing in front of the saloon, Chris walked slowly through the bat wings and stopped just inside the door. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside he surveyed the room and it's inhabitants but gave no hint of recognition to those he knew. As he walked up to the bar he noticed the lone occupant of a table off to his left but again completely ignored the man.

The bar tender glanced toward him and smiled like the cat that ate the canary as Chris bellied up to the bar already stinking of alcohol, his eyes red and bleary.

"Looks like you could use another drink," the barkeep said setting a shot glass down in front of Larabee.

He poured and Chris downed the shot quickly, efficiently and said, "Again…and leave the bottle."

Vin watched as the man in the corner nodded covertly and, as if on cue, the whore rose up out of her chair and crossed over to the gunman at the bar. He'd seen enough and finished his beer, placed his hat on his head and walked out of the bar while Ezra continued to play solitaire.

"You look kind of lonely, mister. Want some company?"

"What I want," Chris said pouring himself a third drink in as many minutes, "Is to get good and drunk."

A spark lit the whore's eyes and she smiled at him, "No wife to keep you on the straight and narrow? No tots to keep you tied down?" Chris looked at her incredulously and her eyes sparkled even more. This would be the easiest money she had ever made, and the quickest, she thought, as the drifter helped himself to more whiskey.

Turning toward the bar, the girl rubbed her ample breasts against Chris' arm and leaned in to speak to the bartender, "I'm thinkin' our friend here would rather have the good stuff, wouldn't ya hun," she finished and turned back to smile at him coquettishly .

"Sure," Chris said with a smile. He draped an arm over the woman's shoulder and added, "Nothin' but the best for me and my gal here."

"Belle, mister. My name's Belle."

"Well, Belle," Chris said eying the fresh bottle the bartender had set in front of him. He poured a generous amount and, holding up the glass, said, "Here's to the good stuff."

Ezra busted on three games of solitaire in a row all the while watching Chris throw back shot after shot until he was sure the gunman would pass out of his own volition and they would be no closer to finding out what had happened to Buck Wilmington than when they'd entered the town. But as he began to deal a fourth layout Chris Larabee suddenly doubled over and, even though he seemingly kept his eyes on his cards, Ezra saw the whore and the bartender hustle the clearly intoxicated gunman out a door behind the bar.

Unfazed, the gambler continued to turn cards with deliberation until the large slovenly man in the corner stood up and also exited out the back. Gathering up his cards Ezra now knew exactly how Buck Wilmington had come to seemingly disappear off the face of the earth. What they didn't know was to where but it seemed plausible that to find him, he and Vin had only to follow Chris Larabee.


	10. Chapter 10

Frank Hawley was back and from the looks of the long legs hanging out the back of the wagon his trip had been successful. The feet, booted in black leather with silver spurs and silver studded spur straps, bounced along with the movement of the wagon over the rutted roadway. A small load of silver ore, gone to an assay office, replace by human cargo.

He was another tall one; lean and well muscled with blond hair and dressed completely in black. Even unconscious he looked dangerous. Had Hawley finally made a mistake and picked someone who would be, if not missed, simply more than he could handle Bethany wondered?

When he finally came to, the newcomer was as sick as the others but refused her help. Stripping himself of his soiled garments he eased himself into the tub, his anger simmering hotly just below the surface. "Where am I?" he asked, his gruff voice startling her.

"I don't know. No one does."

His head pounding, Chris leaned back and closed his eyes afraid he would be sick again. "How'd I get here?"

"Frank Hawley brought you, in his wagon. You were most likely in a bar, drinking, minding your own business, maybe talking to a woman."

"That's right. What's this Hawley got to do with it?"

"He pays the bartender to poison the drinks, to waylay drifters, men no one will miss if they drop off the face of the earth." Chris looked at her, his eyes barely slits, and she added quickly, "Men to work the mine."

Opening his eyes all the way he looked intently at her. "I'm lookin' for someone. A tall man, dark hair, moustache, the kind of man, at first glance, you'd think was a lazy, no account womanizer. A man no one would miss."

Her eyes lit up in instant recognition. "Buck Wilmington," she whispered.

Sighing Chris shook his head. Leave it to Buck to ride out of Four Corners, his feelings all banged up, and head to the only town within 50 miles where the bartender dealt in slave labor. If he wasn't into six kinds of trouble Chris didn't think his oldest friend would be remotely happy.

"He's in the mine with the others," Bethany then told him.

"How many?"

"Five workers plus the overseer, Ruben. His brother Frank runs the mine."

"That's seven to one. Those odds never bothered Buck before."

"The workers would never harm Mr. Wilmington, it's Hawley. He never gives a man a chance to rebel, just beats them into submission and then slowly starves them. The mine takes care of the rest. And it was not for lack of courage on Mr. Wilmington's part that he did not escape," she said in deference to him and the others. It was the fact that he couldn't leave her behind that he never tried to escape and she paused and took an unsteady breath. "He's not the same man you knew," she said cryptically and left clean clothes for him.

When he had finished bathing and his stomach had stopped rebelling Chris stepped from the tent where Bethany waited for him shackles in hand. She would never forget Hawley's threat to shoot the next man she failed to shackle and bent to put them on him.

"What the hell do you think you're doin'?" Chris asked angrily and backed away out of her reach.

"Savin' your life, tough man." Hawley's voice came out of the darkness as he stepped up to the new man and jabbed his rifle barrel painfully into Chris gut while Bethany finished the job. Grabbing her by the hair Hawley yanked her up and shoved her roughly toward the cook fire. "That grub ain't gonna serve itself."

Chris straightened up but never moved to help her or to intervene in any way and Hawley smiled. This one was all show with his dark clothes and the dark looks he'd been casting around the bar. He'd be easier to break than he'd thought, mores the pity. Even after five weeks in the mine and at the receiving end of his wrath Wilmington showed more guts than this pistolaro.

Hawley stood appraising him as the others came to the cook fire like ghostly specters out of the dark. Buck brought up the rear and, although Chris didn't acknowledge that he even knew the man standing across the fire next to the woman as she served, his appearance shocked him. Wilmington had lost at least 20 pounds off his already lean frame and seemed to have lost stature and become shorter than Chris remembered.

Bethany handed a plate to Buck and asked him to bring it to the new man. She gently squeezed his rock hard bicep, a subtle signal, and Buck sighed. Hawley had replaced Petey already and the new man stood just outside the circle of light thrown from the fire wearing the same clothes Buck had worn his first few days in camp. His own clothes were now filthy, torn and threadbare, worn ragged by the abrasive rocks and Buck looked back at Beth, her eyes still fixed on him as she continued to serve the others, and wondered if she would now choose the stronger newcomer who breathed easy and could protect her more readily from Hawley than he could. Would he be turned out of her tent to sleep with the others?

Anger flared in him and he wanted to pummel the newest member in camp, to retain his place in her bed and in her heart. He wanted to smash the man's head with the sledgehammer that had almost become a part of him until he heard the man say softly just above a whisper.

"Leave it to you to have the only woman in this hell hole lookin' at you with love light shinin' in her eyes, you son of a bitch." Chris stepped into the fire's light and took the plate from his startled friend's bandaged hands.

The dogs at the far end of the camp began to howl and pull at chains then quickly settled into uneasy barking. Hawley looked toward the dogs. When they finally settled down Hawley looked back at the two men standing near the fire then at his plate as stew dripped down his chin.

"Is he out there?" Buck whispered guessing it was Vin Tanner who traveled with Chris.

"Him and Ezra," Larabee replied around a mouthful of the tasteless gruel.

"If he suspects anything he'll turn the dogs loose on 'em." Buck warned, again in a whisper, then turned and headed back to the fire to get his own plate.

Frank finished his plate and, sure that the bitch would throw her lot in with the newcomer, taunted the ladies man between belches as Buck walked by , "Look's like nights are gonna be a lot colder for you, cowboy."

Taking his plate Buck walked slowly to the rocks where he could sit and eat in peace and, deep in the shadows, he took in fully the realization that his friends were finally there and tears slipped down his cheeks. It was almost over...one way or the other. If Ezra and Vin failed to take down Hawley and his brother and ended up prisoners or, worse yet, food for the dogs at least someone would be there to protect Bethany Williams until Josiah, J.D. and Nathan came. As for himself, he was done.


	11. Chapter 11

Vin Tanner stood, stared down at the lights from the camp and pulled his jacket tighter while Ezra Standish sat with his back to a rock outcropping and sighed miserably. "Must we wait until sunup before affecting their emancipation?" he asked and pulled his head further into the neck of his jacket like a turtle, "I do believe we'll freeze to death long before then."

"Don't know how many men are down there for sure but I do know there's at least two dogs that'll set to bawling if we get too close. Maybe even break free and attack us if they get a good enough whiff."

Ezra continued to fidget trying vainly to find a position of warmth and comfort. "Surely were far enough away to start a small fire."

"You ever been dog bit, Ezra?" Vin simply asked, "You hunker down here while I check out the camp. And remember, no fire."

Vin laid belly down overlooking the camp and counted seven men, none of whom were Buck Wilmington, and one woman. Chris and the woman both glanced numerous times toward the stream as if waiting for someone to appear. The tracker rose up and picked his way carefully down to the stream's edge and stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted a lone figure standing near the water's edge. Vin could make out the silhouette of a tall man who silently stared down stream watching the swirling eddies in the moonlight.

The tracker moved closer on silent feet and, recognizing his friend, stepped up next to him and told him, "You're a hard man to track, Bucklin," and waited for some kind of reaction. There was none. No spark of recognition lighted the man's eyes, no mischievous grin crossed his lips and Vin wondered briefly if he could have possibly made a huge mistake.

But it was Buck Wilmington come down to the stream to fetch water for Bethany, definitely thinner, a little broader of back and shoulder and when Vin placed a hand on his shoulder the tracker felt the taller man flinch. Not from pain but from a newly pronounced aversion to being touched in any familiar way. Vin knew instinctively that Buck had changed in other way, too, and wondered what had happened to the devil may care scoundrel who had left Four Corners just five weeks before.

Buck's health and well being aside for the moment Vin asked, "What can you tell me?"

"There's two of 'em. Big bastard name of Frank Hawley in the tar-paper shack by the road and Ruben, his brother, skinny feller with snake eyes in the tent next to it. Both of 'em are well armed but it's the dogs ya gotta watch out for. They'll set to hollering if they catch your scent and Hawley'll turn 'em loose." A heavy wet cough rolled up from the bottom of Buck's lungs and he bent over and spit a thick wad, heavy with blood and infection, into the stream.

_So much for Buck's well being,_ Vin thought. In the moonlight he could see the brightness of fever in his friend's eyes and, helping him to stand upright again, he could also see it was only a matter of time for the tall, ladies' man. Days perhaps, maybe even only hours.

Sucking in some much needed air Buck continued to speak looking behind him occasionally as if expecting the glow of golden eyes and razor sharp teeth to explode out of the darkness at any moment. "Ruben's in the mine shaft all day with us and Hawley just skulks around camp most times."

Vin had noticed the lone woman in camp and asked, "And his woman?"

"She's not his! Not with him!" Buck whispered hotly.

"Easy Bucklin," Vin said and squeezed Buck's arm in hopes of quieting his friend's agitation.

Buck shook his head as if to clear it. "She was forced here same as the rest of us. She cooks, has the run of the camp. Name's Bethany Williams."

"Maybe she can help Ezra and me get the drop on this Hawley and his brother while you're in the mine."

The dogs started up but only halfheartedly and Buck figured they must just be hungry but he turned to go anyway. "Just be careful," he warned, "The dogs do the job of any ten armed guards," and started slowly back to camp only to return to the stream bank after Vin had disappeared into the darkness.

The weeks of hardship and pain had taken a toll on him and not just in body but in spirit as well. If he were to walk out of there a free man that night, Buck knew that with enough rest and the proper medicine he would heal and with enough food he would become strong and robust again. It was his spirit that worried him. His hunger for life, his love for living had almost been extinguished.

Often, as he had lain awake these past nights, he imagined himself going after Hawley relentlessly until the man had no choice but to gun him down. Only the thought of the woman alone again in camp kept him from his assisted suicide and, though revenge had been Hawley's initial reason for kidnapping him, the son of a bitch had in fact picked well. No one would really miss him.

A coughing jag overtook him and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It came away bloody. Hawley's latest abuse caused him to urinated blood and his lower back ached unceasingly. He wheezed and hacked like an old man, his chest expanding and contracting painfully. The ladies' man was amazed at how quickly his body had let him down but what was even more of a surprise was how quickly his spirit had been broken. Even with Chris in camp and Vin and Ezra hiding out among the rocks he still felt the unwavering pull of death.


	12. Chapter 12

****To all the muse butt kickers out there with my thanks!****

"Bucklin Wilmington, you come on home now." His mother's words were like a caress but from a chill wind, calling him ever further downstream. He took first one hesitant step, then another. "I'm comin', Ma," he whispered dashing an errant tear from his eye. They'd beaten him up again and she was sure to see the bruises and the blood from his nose but he was gosh darned if he was gonna let her see him cry…ever.

Lila Wilmington leaned over the balcony balustrade and watched as her ten-year-old son walked down the street toward the parlor house in which she currently worked, his head pulled down into his collar, his bony shoulders up around his ears. He was crying again and her heart broke just as it did every time life saw fit to remind him of his lot. It wasn't the boy's fault that she had fallen in love with a married man, a man who had disavowed that love the moment she had told him she was with child. A wealthy businessman, he already had a wife on whom his fortune rested and two boys and there was no room in his life for a bastard son just as there was suddenly no room in his heart for her.

A dark haired, dark eyed beauty just shy of her twentieth birthday, Lila Wilmington had neither prospects nor hope outside of a whorehouse in Joplin, Missouri where she had been taken in and where, after six long months of trials and tribulations, her son had finally been born. The madam and the whores accepted them both without question and instead of one mother Buck Wilmington had, at times, five or six, even as many as eleven depending on the turnover.

To Buck, Lila was everything a mother should be, beautiful, loving, well read and soft spoken and, as he grew older and attended school with the other town's children, the one thing she shouldn't be…a whore. Buck had learned early to keep his head down and to mind his own business but when the other children found out who his mother was and that his various stories about a father who had been killed in the war were suspect to say the least, they would taunt him unmercifully until it became too much to just ignore and he would strike back.

Other dust-ups occurred fairly regularly when the older children, tired of picking on him, would torment the younger, meeker ones and he found he couldn't just sit idly by and watch. He would champion the down trodden but usually ended up with the shitty end of the stick when angry parents, of both the bullies and the bullied, would complain about the scrawny, bastard boy from the red light district.

Lila met him at the door and, brushing his shaggy dark hair from his soulful eyes, lifted his chin and sighed. One eye was nearly swollen shut and blood was smeared beneath his nose, droplets down the front of yet another ruined shirt. "Did you start the fight?" she asked him as she led him into the big kitchen and to the sink.

"No, Ma'am," he replied sullenly,

"Did you finish the fight?" Lila then asked dampening a cloth with which to wipe his face while Sadie, the parlor house's Negro cook, picked at a large block of ice stored in the bottom compartment of an icebox. She knocked off a fist size chunk, wrapped it in a linen napkin and handed it to the boy who placed it over his shiner, a routine they went through more than Buck would have liked.

"Yes, Ma'am. Chester Fowler kept trying to lift up Madeline Mackenzie's skirt. He made her cry."

"And you thought you'd protect her?" Lila asked gently wiping the blood from his face.

"There was no one else, Ma. They all just stood around laughin' or too scared to even squeak like a mouse. I told him to stop, that he was just a bully and that's when he hit me."

"'Dat Fowler boy is five years older and nearly twice yo' size, master Buck," Sadie pointed out returning to her counter to finish cutting out that evening's biscuits, "I certainly hope ya' thrashed 'im good."

Buck smiled. What he lacked in stature he made up for in heart and slaying the dragon for the fair princess Madeline had been his duty and his honor. She had even given him a peck on the cheek as a reward for sending Chester running for home in tears and asked to sit next to him in class.

"You know I don't hold with fighting," his mother reminded him, "but I applauded you for wanting to protect Miss Madeline's virtue. It's something a woman holds dear."

Buck didn't know what a woman's virtue was as such but he figured loosing it made a woman awful sad…like his ma. She cried a lot, usually after leaving him in the care of Sadie or one of the other working girls while she entertained her various callers. Having been born and raised in a whorehouse, Buck had a good idea of what went on behind the closed door and a soon as he gained his full growth or reached his majority, whichever came first, he vowed to take his mother far away from Joplin and the life she'd been forced into…because of him. When the other children taunted him it hurt but what really cut him to the quick was the truth.

Buck lowered the chunk of ice and looked up at his mother. The sadness of his pain, both physical and emotional, showed in his eyes and his mother simply wrapped him in the warmth of her arms. Afraid of what the future held for her boy, she begged, "Bucklin, please stay with me," but it was Bethany's voice that drew him back to the here and now and her warm and comforting arms that drew him out of the freezing water and back to the tent where he sat in the rocking chair, his face white as a sheet, his eyes vacant as he stared into the void.


	13. Chapter 13

The woman stood in the doorway of his tent and backlit by the fire's light her face was unreadable in the shadows. Chris Larabee sat up slowly on the pile of rags that had been assigned as his bed and, standing ungainly on shackled legs, he walked slowly toward her and followed doggedly as she turned and headed toward her tent.

Casting Frank Hawley a disparaging look as the mine boss laughed knowingly, Chris entered the tent and was shocked as his eyes adjusted to the light of a kerosene lamp and to the visage of Buck Wilmington as he sat in the rocking chair. He never moved a muscle or gave any indication he knew that Chris had even entered the tent.

"Bucklin, you have a guest," his mother said to him and placed an icy hand on his arm, "He's come for your Bethany."

Buck sighed deeply and in response coughed thickly barely able to swallow the viscous fluid back down. "I knew it was only a matter of time," he told Chris looking feverishly at his supposed friend and the woman who stood next to him.

"You should have known I'd find you eventually," Chris assured him but Buck only glared at him hostilely.

In his delirium Buck had moved beyond Chris' rescue attempt and Lila squeezed his arm again making him bold. "What I knew is that you'd try to take Bethany…just like you took Sarah."

Chris bristled at the accusations then quickly calmed himself. He knew his wife had had a soft spot for Buck Wilmington but her relationship with him had gone no further. The ladies man had been fond of Sarah, maybe even loved her in his own way, but nothing had ever come between the three of them…until Buck had talked him into staying one more night.

Looking into Buck's red rimmed, fevered eyes Chris knew that his friend was not himself and that after weeks in this hellhole his will to live hung by the thinnest of threads. He needed to bring him back from the edge so he laughed sardonically and said angrily, "Bethany told me that you was weak and like a coward you'd given up on guarding her from Hawley…or from me."

Buck stared at Chris trying to focus on his face but his head throbbed and his body ached and when he felt Lila's cold hand on his forehead he simply closed his eyes.

Bethany hurried to stand behind him, to seek refuge from the grim faced, gunman who now stood before them. "Buck, please," she whispered bending low to his ear, "It's almost over."

"You can't know that!" Buck said in an insistent whisper, "What if the dogs get to you first?" Vin was good but could never shoot three vicious wildly running dogs in time. He knew what he had to do and reached out toward Lila's outstretched hand.

Chris grabbed it instead and Buck turned newly focused eyes on his friend.

"Chris…" Buck started but his thoughts left him when Lila smiled, beckoning him again.

"So be it. If she ain't worth fightin' for I will take her…" Chris told him and Buck smiled in relief, "…but you know what kind of man I am," he then reminded him, "I'm hard and even though I might not mean it I'll be hard on her. Is that what you want?"

Bethany looked at the man who spoke so bluntly; his eyes cold, his mouth a harsh slash, and she knew he spoke the truth. This man was damaged and although he might be Buck's closest friend they were worlds apart. Where, despite the circumstances, the light of joy had sparkled, however briefly, in Buck Wilmington's eyes there was none to be seen in Larabee's, only green ice, bereft of any hint of kindness. This man would do what needed to be done, protect her from Frank Hawley but who would protect her from him? Her hand tightened on Buck's shoulder.

Buck felt her trembling touch and closed his eyes again. He knew Chris better than anyone, knew the man he had been and mourned the loss of the gentle and caring soul who had once been closer to him than a brother. Chris was right. His unquenchable thirst for revenge had sucked dry everything good he'd ever been leaving only a hardened shell. But what choice did he have?

"Bucklin, you need to rest," Lila said and with Bethany's help he got up. With his body between hers and that of the gunman she got him settled in the bed while Lila kissed him softly, coldly on the cheek and told him, "Rest now my darling son. We'll be going home soon."

Trying to spark anger into action had failed miserable and Chris had only succeeded in frightening the woman who now stood solicitously next to the bed. "I've never known you to once run from a fight, Buck. Why're you givin' up now?" Chris demanded and, startled to see a rivulet of blood drip slowly from Buck's mouth, was even more stunned by his words.

"'cause I'm dyin' ya dumb son of a bitch," the ladies man told him with an easy but bloodied grin.


	14. Chapter 14

"How soon will Hawley take these off?" Chris asked under his breath as he walked ungainly up to Bethany as she waited for Buck to emerge from their tent.

"When you're no longer a threat," she said turning to glance back at Buck, his chains now around Chris Larabee's ankles. Like the others, he was up in the pre-dawn darkness but it was doubtful he could or would be made to make the trek to the mine.

"When will he go to town again?" Chris then asked.

"When you or one of the others outlive your usefulness," she told him before Ruben shoved him roughly, rifle in hand.

"Stop jawin' and move out," Ruben commanded, sneering at Larabee before he turned to cruelly dismiss Buck, "We got no use for you anymore, cowboy."

Even though he knew it was coming, hearing his verdict spoken aloud chilled him to the bone. Too weak to protest, the ladies man turned and shuffled back into the tent.

Before he left, Chris stared deep into her eyes. "You keep him alive, you hear me?"

His unspoken threat hung in the air between them. If Buck died, from causes either natural or nefarious, before he and the others could free him, Larabee might not kill her outright but he would be sure to make her suffer. Shivering, Bethany pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and glanced up toward the mountain, still only a dark shadow in the distance.

Later, after a night where he might very well have perish from the cold, Ezra Standish, with great cunning and stealth, slipped into Ruben Hawley's humble abode unnoticed by man or beast. The squalid, one-room shack with its single glassless window, double bed - complete with soiled feather mattress - wardrobe and small table was empty, as was the dog pen. The mining camp had rousted about an hour earlier and Vin had left him to his own devices while the tracker went to reconnoiter in the early morning light.

The cabin reeked of whiskey, smoke, rotted food, unwashed bodies and, somewhere deep within the disgusting olfactory mixture, Ezra was sure he could smell the lingering odor of fear. What in God's name had gone on in this desolate mining camp and for how long? If Buck Wilmington's appearance and demeanor, according to Vin Tanner, were any indication it had been brutal.

The battered wardrobe, evidently expensive but one that had seen better care, stood against one canvas wall and trying the doors Ezra found them locked. Checking the usual places for hiding a key he could not find one but with a small blade slipped between the doors and the subtle finesse of practiced fingers they swung wide revealing a pile of woman's clothing, under which, was a locked strong box.

Again Ezra's knife and skilled fingers made short work of the lock box and inside he found two stacks of good, solid, United States currency and an ornately carved, wooden jewel box under which a bound leather journal lay. Ignoring the diary for the moment the box garnered Ezra's full attention and he was not disappointed. Within it lay a nest of tangled jewelry, necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches and ear bobs. Even an untrained eye could see that the gold was of the highest quality, the jewels superior.

Beneath the booty he spied a Gutta Percha picture case containing a Daguerreotype of a handsome couple. A blond man standing behind a dark haired beauty, the former glory that, again according to Vin, could only be the woman Buck Wilmington now so fiercely protected.

Returning the ornate frame to the box, Ezra closed the lid, his fingers lingering on the top. Even without her share of Frank Hawley's money, when this was all over, Bethany Williams was wealthy enough in jewelry alone to return home or continue on to her original destination or travel anywhere in the world for that matter. Ezra opened the journal to the page marked by a thin red ribbon, the last entry into the book dated almost a year before.

'Our prayers have been answered. We will not have to spend another day in La Junta.

A bear of a man name Frank Hawley and his brother Ruben have agreed to lead our small band of adventures over the Cimarron Crossing and on to Sante Fe. We will bypass the cold, harsh winters of Colorado and Utah and, though the trip will be long and arduous, Mr. Hawley has assured us that we will reach our goal in good time. None of us can believe how fortunate we are.'

The entries stopped there, far short of a happy ending just as the wagons had stopped far short of their destination.


End file.
